Supreme Court upholds validity of Aadhaar

The Supreme Court Wednesday declared the Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid. The apex court’s five-judge Constitution bench said Aadhaar means unique and it is better to be unique than being best. The first of the three judgements was pronounced by Justice AK Sikri for himself, Chief Justice Dipak Misra and AM Khanwilkar.

Following are the key highlights of the verdict:

The Supreme Court upheld the validity of Aadhaar saying sufficient security measures are taken to protect data and it is difficult to launch surveillance on citizens on the basis of Aadhaar. The five-judge bench led by CJI Dipak Misra asked the government to provide more security measures as well as reduce the period of storage of data.

The SC asked the Centre to bring a robust law for data protection as soon as possible.

The top court said Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for openings of a bank account and for getting mobile connections.

The SC said that Aadhaar must not be made compulsory for school admission and the administration cannot make it mandatory.

The SC directed the government to ensure that illegal migrants are not issued Aadhaar to get benefits of social welfare schemes.

Private companies can’t ask for Aadhaar, said the top court.

Justice Sikri while reading out the verdict on the constitutional validity of Aadhaar said that there is a fundamental difference between Aadhaar card and identity. Once the bio-metric information is stored, it remains in the system, he said.

The apex court struck down the provision in Aadhaar law allowing sharing of data on the ground of national security.

The SC said there is a fundamental difference between Aadhaar and other identity proof as Aadhaar cannot be duplicated and it is a unique identification. It added that Aadhaar is to empower the marginalised sections of the society, and it gives them an identity.

Aadhaar satisfies the doctrine of proportionality, said justice Sikri, adding, “It is better to be unique than to be best.”

The constitutional validity of Aadhaar was challenged by 31 petitions on grounds that it violated the right to privacy of citizens.